+
upworthy

good government

When Cassandra J. Perry was 13, a physical disability prevented her from going to school.

She had a genetic connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which means that her joints are unstable, her connective tissue is weak, she’s more prone to injuries, and she has chronic pain.

When she began living alone as an adult after splitting up with her spouse, she worried about how she’d be able to grocery shop.

Keep ReadingShow less

Bambadjan Bamba is a busy working actor, but when I get him on the phone, it's clear he's also a busy working dad.

"I have to get my daughter home," he says. "Can I call you back in 15 minutes?"

Bamba's toddler daughter happily babbles in the backseat. It's clearly been a fun afternoon with dad. My phone rings exactly 15 minutes later. Bamba is a man of his word.

Keep ReadingShow less

Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wants to do away with net neutrality. This is a terrible idea.

Net neutrality is kind of tricky to explain, but here's an analogy: Right now, most Americans get their internet from one provider, like Comcast, Charter, Verizon, etc. Let's pretend these telecommunications companies built a grocery store. Big sites and applications like Facebook, Netflix, Google, and Twitter are shoppers in line. Right now, with net neutrality, the checkout line at the grocery store allows open access. They legally can't choose which lines move slower or faster. But if net neutrality goes away, the telecom companies will have the power to favor their own content. In other words, Comcast may let the Comcast streaming service use the express lane and force Netflix to get in line behind someone writing a check.

Our current net neutrality rules were approved two years ago, but Pai described the rules as "burdensome" and anti-innovation, and this week, he began the process of dismantling them, with a vote coming next month.

Keep ReadingShow less

"The paralysis you feel right now — the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen — isn’t real," wrote Sen. Chris Murphy.

"It's a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby, designed to assure that no laws are passed to make America safer, because those laws would cut into their profits," the Connecticut Democrat continued.

As many other politicians followed the standard routine of blaming gun violence on mental illness and offering "thoughts and prayers" in the wake of yet another mass shooting — this one in a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church — Murphy issued a statement urging immediate and tangible action.

Keep ReadingShow less